Nilkamal Plastics : Creating Value Through Convenience

Corporate Brand : Nilkamal
Agency : Triton

Brand Analysis Count : 385

Nilkamal is a company that successfully branded a commodity. Nilkamal is the market leader in the plastic molded furniture segment in India. The brand has a long history dating back to 1934. The company was founded by Mr Vrajlal Parekh. Mr Vrajlal Parekh started manufacturing metal buttons from his small factory. In 1950, he started producing plastic products and the company was called Standard Plastics. Nilkamal Plastics was born in 1956 and became and independent company in 1981.

The Indian home furniture market is huge with a market size of around Rs 14000 crores. Majority of the market is in the unorganized sector. Nilkamal operates in the moulded furniture market which is around Rs 950 crores. According to reports , 40% of which is in the unorganized sector.
Nilkamal is known for its plastic chairs . But the company is also a major player in manufacturing crates which are used for commercial purposes.

Nilkamal is a brand that popularised the use of plastic chairs at homes . Earlier households used to purchase only wooden /steel furnitures. But Nilkamal was able to break that mindset . Nilkamal did this by creating good designs and also taking care of the quality factor.

Households earlier was averse to plastic chairs because it looked ugly and was not perceived to be strong. Nilkamal changed that perception by introducing well designed chairs .This was backed by heavy promotions using various media.

In a market which was dominated by unorganized players, the brand building gave Nilkamal more mileage and also premium prices.The success of Nilkamal prompted many players to enter the segment. Since the designs could be easily copied, it was difficult for Nilkamal to sustain the growth momentum. Nilkamal is the market leader in the segment with a share of over 37%.But the market for moulded furnitures has become stagnant.


In 2005, the brand moved from molded furniture to home solutions. The brand introduced knocked down furniture and also sofa sets , dining tables ,baby chairs which became popular. The brand was slowly moving towards becoming a lifestyle furniture player.

The company also introduced a new range of office furniture brand Novella. During this time, the brand ventured into retail business by launching large retail format under the brand name @home. These retail outlets showcased the new range of home solutions from the company.

Recently the brand also launched a range of plastic Cupboards and cabinets branded as Freedom.
Nikamal is a brand that is heavily associated with plastic furniture. The brand has a high credibility among the consumers. The major problem faced by the brand is that plastic is associated with cheap furniture and this has prevented the penetration of this product category into high -margin household furniture segment.

But I think there is a huge potential for Nilkamal in developing itself to a highly creative furniture company. As a consumer, I have often found branded furniture to be terribly overpriced for the quality it delivers.Branded wooden furniture are out of reach for many middle class customers. Plastic furnitures lack the glamour and home makers tried to avoid these products. Hence there is a huge potential for affordable designer furniture. Currently this market is being captured by cheap imports from China. There is a flood of imported furniture which looks good and priced affordably.

Nilkamal have the brand equity to tap this potential. Although it is heavily associated with plastics, it could leverage that equity in creating an affordable range of home solutions to the Indian middle class.

Brand Update : Horlicks NutriBar

Horlicks has launched a new product - Horlicks Nutribar. The Horlicks brand has gone in for a category extension with this launch. The earlier category extension for Horlicks was into buscuits.
Nutribar is a cereal bar which contains cereals and multi-grains.Nutribar does not belong to the confectionery segment ( chocolates) but belong to an emerging category called functional foods.

Functional foods are those health foods like energy drinks ,cereals and cereal bars which contains health promoting ingredients. These products are also known as nutriceauticals.
The market for functional foods in India is estimated to be around Rs 1700 crores and is growing very fast.

Nutribar is being launched now as an extension of Horlicks. I am considering this product as a category extension because this brand is heavily supported and endorsed by Horlicks brand. So Horlicks has become the endorser brand for Nutribar. This is essential because the product is trying to create a new category.

Once the Nutribar brand becomes popular, the company may make it an individual brand without being endorsed by Horlicks. Now NutriBar is the primary brand and Horlicks is the endorser brand.

Nutribar is being positioned as a healthy solution to hunger. The brand is targeting the health conscious young generation. Reports suggest that this is a product specifically made for Indian market.

The brand is currently running a television commercial : Watch it here
Nutribar contains wheat, rice, oats and honey . The brand is claiming to have 11 nutrients and offers a convenient healthy snack.
Globally , functional foods have become a high growth market because of the health and convenience factors. India too has seen following such a trend.
It is interesting to see how Nutribar will be able to create and rule this category. It all depends on the support and investment that the company puts in behind this brand.

Related Brand

Horlicks

Tata Xenon XT : Fits No Label

Brand : Xenon XT
Company : Tata Motors
Agency : O&M

Brand Analysis Count : 384

While the debate is still raging over whether recession is the best time to launch new products, Tata Motors have launched a brand new vehicle Tata Xenon XT. What is interesting is that Xenon is not only a new product but it is trying to create a new segment as well.

Tata Xenon XT is a Lifestyle Pickup Truck. For Indians , the concept of a lifestyle pickup truck is entirely new. Pickup trucks are heavily associated with cargo. According to livemint website, in 2007-08 around 1,25,000 pickup trucks were sold.

The concept of lifestyle pickup trucks is directly imported from the western market. I have seen in Hollywood movies where families driving around in pickup trucks ( remember movie Twister ?) especially when they have a farm or when they love offroading.

It is not the first time that Tata Motors is experimenting with the concept of lifestyle pickup trucks. In 2005, the company had launched the same kind of product Tata TL 4x4. But the product bombed owing to the steep pricing of around 10 lakhs.

The current Xenon was debuted in the Bologna Motorshow in 2006. The brand shares the same platform as the Sumo Grande. Before being launched in India, Tata Motors has been selling this vehicle in Thailand, Saudi,Algeria, Italy etc.

The critical marketing issues with Xenon XT are two ? Need and Positioning.

The first issue is whether there is a need for such a product in the Indian market. The brand is aiming at those customers who love offroading and are in need of a pickup vehicle. The rich farmers of Punjab and those guys who love hunting and adventure are the potential customers for this product. The hardworking, fun loving entrepreneurs who love to sweat and enjoy the wild fits the label for this product.

How ever the question still lingers whether the product is ahead of its time ? Are the Indian consumers ready for a cross-over product like Xenon. The pricing of the product is also steep at Rs 7 - 10 lakhs where it will be competing with its brother Tata Safari and the highly successful Scorpio.

The second issue is the positioning.

Indian consumers has never seen a product like this. Hence the task of establishing the points of parity is crucial. One of the steps in establishing POP for an entirely new product is to establish the category membership . Since the consumers have not seen such a product before, the brand should first establish a reference point for the consumers. It has to tell the consumer that the product belongs to a certain category.

This is where Xenon has a challenge. Tata Motors in their press release itself have mentioned that creating a reference point for Xenon is the major challenge. I would say that the success of Xenon will depend largely on establishing the right category membership.

For a product that tries to create a new category, the marketers try to establish the category membership first and then try to do a break-away positioning from its root category. If the category membership is wrong, then the break away strategy will never work.
A classic case of break away positioning is seen in the Swatch brand. The brand wanted to create a new category watches. So Swatch first established its membership in the fashion accessory category and not in the watch category. Then it created the break away positioning as a " watch accessory".

What the advertising agency has done for Xenon is one of the most risky strategy in establishing a new category. It has not tried to establish the category membership. Instead of establishing membership in a category ( SUV or Pickup truck), the brand has left it to the consumers to decide the category to which Xenon belongs.

In the first print ad for this brand, Xenon has adopted the tagline - "Fits No Label ". That means that neither the agency nor the company is sure about the category membership and it is leaving this responsibility to the consumers.

History has shown us that leaving this task to consumer is dangerous. In branding text books, you can find the classic case of Motorola Envoy which failed because it did not defined its competitive frame of reference. Envoy was the first personal digital assistant (PDA) product that the consumers have seen. Envoy did not have all the functionality of a laptop but had more functions than an organizer,. But the brand never bothered to establish a category membership.
The brand never defined itself and consumers could not understand the exact category that the product belonged to. Consumers was confused and the product failed. While the competitor Palm Pilot which established itself in the Electronic Organizer category acheived considerable success. ( reference : Strategic Brand Management by Keller).

When we leave this task of reference point to the consumer, the consumer is free to put this product in any of the category. By the look of the vehicle, there are chances that consumers will put Xenon as a pickup truck. If they do so, then Xenon will face the issue that Tata TL faced-Consumers unwilling to pay Rs 9 Lakhs for a pickup.

I think that in the current scenario, Xenon should not associate itself with the truck category. It should have the membership in the offroader /SUV category because trucks never are associated with luxury and comfort in India. I would love this vehicle to fill the gap that Maruti Gypsy left. So Xenon should be a Luxury Jeep and not a truck.

Xenon have the biggest USP of being heavily customisable . The consumer have the option of a large number of accessories like bed-liner,canopy, boot lid etc. It is powered by Dicor engine and comes with SUV accessories.

Tata Motors have in a way messed up its positioning for Xenon during the launch itself . All the news about Xenon has already labeled it as a pickup truck. It has to be seen whether Indian consumers will accept the concept of a luxury pickup truck.

Shilpa Bindi : Shilpa Char Chand Lagaye

Brand : Shilpa
Company : Paramount Cosmetics Ltd


Brand Analysis Count : 383

Bindi is a product that is very much linked to India's culture. The dot that Indian women adores on her forehead has been a distinct symbol of our tradition and culture . Although there are no historical references to the origin of bindi, some historians trace the origin of the product back to 4th century.

For all these years, this small dot has become an integral part of the facial make-up of Indian women. Bindi was earlier popular in the form of powder ( Kumkum) and liquid. Later came the era of sticker bindi. Both Kumkum and Liquid bindi's are messy and thus created a need for Bindi which is more user-friendly.

Sticker Bindis became popular because it was less messy and easy to use. Shilpa is the major brand in this category.
Shilpa is a brand owned by Gujarat based Paramount cosmetics which also own the brands like Shringar and Tips & Toes.

Over these years, bindi category also has changed drastically. While the sticker bindi was intended to replace the ubiquitous red liquid kumkum, slowly this product was also subjected to experiments.
From the plain bindi, the product began to take various size and shapes. The market has also moved towards different segments like designer bindi, bindi with swarovski crystals and so on.
The cost of this product have also changed with times. Now these products cost anywhere between Rs 5 to Rs 2000. There are designer bindi which costs even more.

The bindi market is dominated by unorganised sector. If you visit a fancy store, you will see a huge display of these bindis and ladies just swift through these for their favorite designs. The consumer looks primarily for the design while buying these products.

It is in this context that Shilpa brand assumes significance. Shilpa is a predominantly a plain-bindi brand. In my knowledge, the brand has not ventured into designer category. But this brand still commands immense brand equity among the consumers. The brand has high recall and there are loyal customers for the brand.

Consumers of this category buys both design and plain bindis. For frequent and daily use , consumers prefer branded well known plain bindis while on social occasions, they go in for the design bindis. I wonder why this brand has not moved aggressively into designer premium bindis. It had the brand equity to leverage and the move towards premium designer bindi will only increase the brand's visibility and equity.

One reason for the success of Shilpa brand is the trust factor . Ladies fear that constant use of sticker bindi can cause skin problems . Hence they prefer branded bindis for daily use.
Shilpa although is catering to a small market size had invested in building the brand. There were lot of ads for this brand.

Watch one of the ads here : Shilpa

There were two factors that made this brand sticky in the mind of the consumer. The main factor is the jingle. Shilpa had the famous jingle " Shilpa Char Chand Lagaye" which is still remembered by the consumer. Second factor is the packaging. The pack created a solid identity for the brand.
Since plain bindi purchase is a low involvement purchase, consumers were loyal to this brand since it was safe and easy for them.
But the brand faces the issue of competition from the unorganised segment .

Another significant threat for Shilpa is the changing consumer behavior. The demographic shift in the Indian consumers are a source of worry for traditional products like Bindi and Kumkum.
Whether the new hip-hop generation will continue using this product is a matter of concern.

Brand Update : Fastrack

Youth brand Fastrack is expanding itself into retail business by starting exclusive Fastrack showrooms across the country. Together with the retail foray, the brand is also extending itself into accessories like belts,bags,wallets and wristbands.

My first reaction was that " Is this brand crazy ? "

Why should a brand like Fastrack enter into retail business when the entire retail industry is facing a downturn ?

Personally I am a bit scary about the concept of Brand Extension. Fastrack which is predominantly a watch brand has earlier extended to sunglasses. That extension worked well because there was a significant gap existing which was tapped through that extension.

Let us take a look at the two major decisions taken by Fastrack.

The first decision is the extension towards accessories like belts, bags and wristband. The logic behind this extension is that the target market uses these products and all these categories are dominated by unbranded products.

It is true that there are no national brands in these categories except for the bags where there are players like VIP and Samsonite. But there is no brand targeting the youth even in the bag segment. Regarding the belts and wrist band, there are no known players. So the brand managers may have thought that Fastrack can tap these markets by leveraging its brand equity among the youth.

But do Fastrack have the competence and expertise to make and market these products ? Obviously the brand will outsource the production and act as the marketer. But selling bags and belts are different from selling watches. Both are different product categories which need differen expertise. By extending itself into categories which are not even related will defenitely dilute the Fastrack brand.

Another reason for this extensions is to develop Fastrack as an accessory brand rather than restricting itself to watches and sunglasses. Although it sounds good, my concern is whether Fastrack has sufficient equity that support such an extension. I feel that the brand is moving too fast without developing a proper foundation.

No doubt that the brand is popular among the youth but the brand has not reached the pinnacle from where it could confidently extend itself. It has not reached the level of Nike or Reebok from where they could leverage the equity to unrelated categories.

The second decision of the brand is to enter the retailing business. This is the most alarming part of the brand's latest moves. From a product brand to a retailing brand is not a wise decision at all. I was initially wondering why a brand should do a forward integration like entering retailing.

For Fastrack, I think there are two reasons.

The first reason is the brand's decision to diversify into accessories. Fastrack's accessories cannot be sold through opticians and watch showrooms. Hence the decision to retail venture is largely driven by the brand extension rather than marketing sense.

Another minor reason is that exclusive retail stores acts as brand building tools since the brand will be able to showcase all the products and marketing tools at its stores.

But I strongly think that Fastrack will lose its focus through these decisions. Retailing is a different business that requires different skill sets. It is an expensive venture that needs different management skillsets. and lot of financial commitments. Fastrack will have to spent lot of its management time in developing and maintaining these stores which should have been used by it for developing its core business

Fastrack have not learned from the Peter England brand's foray into retailing. Peter England had started a retail venture - Peter England People with the same objectives. Now reports say that the company is rethinking this venture because it has not taken off as expected.

Related Brand
Fastrack

Tanishq : Revitaliser of Tradition

Brand : Tanishq
Company : Titan Industries
Agency : Lowe Lintas

Brand Analysis Count : 382

Tanishq is a very interesting brand. Interesting because it is a brand that is trying to change the rules of an industry which is very fragmented. Tanishq is one of the first brands to create a national brand in the Rs 40,000 crore Indian Jewelery market.

The Indian jewelery market is huge and India is the second largest consumer of gold trailing behind USA. But the jewelery market is highly fragmented. The branded jewelery segment is hardly 5% of the total market.

Tanishq was launched in 1995. Since then , the brand has grown to a Rs 1200 crore brand even overtaking Titan watches interms of the turnover.
Tanishq is a retail brand. It is the chain of jewelery shops set up by Titan across the country. According to the company website, Tanishq has more than 104 stores across 71 cities. The chain is operating through a franchise system.

Titan has also another brand of retail outlets which is known as Gold Plus which is targeting the urban/semiurban consumers and small towns. Gold Plus has presence in more than 20 towns and Titan is planning a major expansion of these stores.

Titan planned to venture into gold business way back in late 1980's. During that period of foreign exchange crisis, a good way to earn the valuable foreign exchange was through gold business. But by the time the company figured out the business, the foreign exchange problem was over.

Although the jewelery market is large, doing business in this segment is not a cake walk. The market is complex and highly unorganized. The consumer behavior is also different compared to what we see in other products and categories.

Consumers tend to see gold as an investment and indulgence. Most of the individual consumers are loyal to their local jeweler /goldsmith. And for a brand like Tanishq, it had to break this traditional consumer buying process and also make them switch their loyalty from the goldsmith to the retailer.

In the state of Kerala where I live, the market is more organized. There are large chain of jewelers who have their presence across the state. Consumers tend to buy from these retail chains rather than make the gold jewelery from a gold smith.

Tanishq started off selling 18 carat gold jewelers. The brand at that time was positioned as a jewelery for daily wear . But the brand ran into difficulties since the consumers were too sticky about 22 carat ornaments. The light weight jewelery was still alien to the consumers.

Tanishq was depending heavily on the pull factor. The brand relied on the design ranges, the trust that the Tata brand carries and also the reliability factor.
One of the major hurdles that the brand faced was the brand recognition during its initial stages. People did not know about the Tanishq brand . Since gold is a high value- high involvement purchase, consumers were risk averse in trying out a new retail format like Tanishq. The consumers were also less responsive to the premium that Tanishq jewelery commanded.

It takes lot of time to change the consumer perception. It is harder if this behavior is rooted in tradition. Gold retailing is heavily rooted in tradition. If we look at the genesis of local jewelers, most of them have a long tradition and their business and clientele has been built over generations.
Since the pricing of gold jewelery is tricky and complex, consumers also tended to rely on their traditional store rather than experimenting with new stores.
But these have changed in recent times. The stores has been exploiting the consumers by complex pricing policies like " making charges", value addition etc which an ordinary consumer seldom understand.Tanishq has been trying to tap on this need for a honest gold retailer.

Along the way , the brand also had to fight the perception of being a premium brand. In a classic case of over positioning, the brand had to convince the consumer that Tanishq had jewelery which was affordable. Over positioning is where the brand narrowly positions itself and consumer tend to have a narrow image of the brand.

To tide over this issue, Tanishq came out with small priced collections which to an extend corrected the perception problem.
According to the company website, Tanishq had a turnover of over Rs 1200 crores.

The brand is very active across the media. Tanishq have a two prong branding strategy. The company have the main brand Tanishq and lot of sub brands for its different collections. Some of these brands are Solo, Aria, Diva , Collection G etc.
Tanishq recently roped in the new Bollywood diva Asin to endorse a collection.To tide over the issue of low margins, Tanishq has recently launched the diamond collection which is considered to be a high margin product line.
Tanishq has been trying to differentiate on the designs. It had built lot of product lines and has branded these lines. The brand feels that consumers will chose Tanishq for its designs.

Regarding the promotional strategies, Tanishq have the major issue is fighting the regional players. Consider the Kerala example, the brand Tanishq have zero visibility compared to the local jewelery chains. The local jewelers of kerala are advertising freaks and one of the largest spenders in print and visual media in the state.
Jewelers in Kerala have roped in most of the famous models and divas for their campaigns. Even ex-bollywood divas like Sridevi Jayaprada and Hemamalini are endorsing some of the Kerala Jewelers.

The jewelery business works in a different way. The business works like this. Most of the jewelers does not make these jewelleries. They are mere traders. They buy the designs from the jewelery makers and then display them and sell them on a mark-up. Most of the makers supply to all retailers hence retailers stock similar designs thus making this a commodity trading business with little scope of differentiation.

These jewelery chains then spend heavily on building their brands and luring the consumers . Now the stores are so desperate that they have sales executives who are canvasing the bride's parents. Marriage is the event where maximum gold purchases are done by the consumers. You cannot built volume in gold business by ignoring the marriage segment. And this segment is witnessing a dog-eat-dog competition . Gifts, referrels, discounts rule this segment. I am not sure whether Tanishq is geared up for such a volume business.

Among this noise, Tanishq is virtually non-existent. I think, this is the case in most of the states. Hence if Tanishq have to capture the market, it will have to take the brand promotion to the local market. Since the brand is operating on a franchise model, it will have difficulty in localizing its brand promotional activities. I do not remember any campaign which is highly memorable for this brand. In this business, one has to have a higher share of mind and share of voice in order to be successful.

The brand also faces the issue of flucutating gold prices. The concept of a fixed MRP in gold jewellery will not work and usually the mark-up and other charges vary with seasons and demand. When you are operating on a national scale, these issues makes the operations very complex. Jewelery business has not become a commodity business and margins also have come down drastically.

When Tanishq launched the everyday -wear, it was a concept that was ahead of its time. But I feel that the younger generation is now opening up to the concept of such a collection. The ballooning gold prices are also an opportunity for Tanishq to rejuvenate such a line of jewelery.

Tanishq has reached a position from where it can scale up the business to the next level . The brand has to localise its promotional campaigns which will inturn make the brand more visible among the local consumers.